"No White Flag Above My Door": The Value of Romanc

How Much of Your Life Do Your Spend Angry?
How to avoid wasting years of frustration.


A new survey found that citizens of the United Kingdom spend three-and-a-half years of their lives being angry. Even more remarkable, the causes of their distress were everyday frustrations such as bad customer service and automated phone systems. Unfortunately, we too frequently approach such 'obstacles' with defeatism instead of assertiveness.

Sweating the Small Stuff

Two thousand Brits completed the survey and reported spending one hour and nineteen minutes a day in a foul mood as a result of, what should be in the grand scheme of things-minor nuisances. Although work problems, money worries and family issues were mentioned in the survey, they all failed to make the top ten. The top spots were dominated by various customer service issues and other societal horrors such as Dog Mess and Public Displays of Affection.

But do poor customer service, automated menus and the like impact our quality of life for the worse in the USA as much as they do in the UK? Unfortunately, yes. Complaining psychology tells us that people in the USA are just as affected by minor irritants as our cousins in the UK.

Samuel, a senior financial executive I worked with some years ago, once spent an entire therapy session describing the 'preparations' he went through to whip himself up into feeling sufficiently assertive to place a simple call to his bank to dispute interest fees. In addition to the therapy hour, Samuel spent numerous hours dreading the call, a good hour preparing for it (dressing in his best suit, warming up his voice, stretching, cracking his knuckles and making sure his wife